


the very proof

by natromanoffs



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 02, Trauma, reference to suicide, very ellie-focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26670502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natromanoffs/pseuds/natromanoffs
Summary: set vaguely in s2. Ellie knows that what happened has changed her, knows she's a different person because of it, and there are certain moments that make this glaringly obvious.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	the very proof

**Author's Note:**

> i just. have a lot of feelings about these two and this show and i saw this quote on tumblr n lost my mind a little so here's this

  


  


  


"Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."

\- Ocean Vuong, _On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous_

  


  


  


Ellie’s always been a pretty affectionate person. She’s quick to offer a listening ear, quick to offer kind words or a small gift, quick to place a reassuring hand on someone’s shoulder. She’s irritated by Hardy at her first glance of him, he’s the knob that’s taken her job, and she’s barely known him a moment when she realizes his work style is entirely at odds with hers. Still, she’s not the kind of person who just gives up on someone that easily, so she tries to be friendly to him when she can muster it, offering him food and coffee and a listening ear. But he rebuffs her, almost every time, so, though she doesn’t quite stop trying, she backs off a bit.

  


Throughout the beginning of their work partnership, he only touches her a few times. And these are just strange pats on the back when there’s a break in the case or an accidental bump of shoulders. There’s no hugging, no comforting hand on the shoulder, and not from her, either. If he was anyone else, she might’ve offered him more physical comfort, might’ve put a hand on his arm when she asked him about Sandbrook, might’ve brushed the dirt from his sleeve when she noticed it. But he was DI Hardy, stoic extraordinaire, so she didn’t. 

  


When everything goes down with Joe, when he tells her the news that sends a crack running through her life, he touches her. She’s crying and retching in the corner and he’s got a hand on her back, on her shoulder. She hardly notices it, is too caught up in the horror to pay it much mind. If anything, it serves as a bit of a tether, as something keeping her connected to the physical world, a reminder that there’s still things around her, that she still resides in a body, that she hasn’t gone somewhere else altogether. He reassures her, then, puts a hand on her arm and tells her he’ll see her later, and stays up with her in his hotel room, lets her talk it all out, and offers her all the words he can.

  


When everything goes down with Joe, he _does_ offer her physical comfort, but she doesn’t think much of it. It seems sort of like a reflex, like anyone who told her that news would’ve rubbed a thumb on her shoulder and helped her back to her feet, like anyone in his position would have gently touched her arm when reassuring her they’d be there later to talk the whole thing through. It’d be expected of anyone, really, so it’s not all that strange that he follows those motions.

  


  


It’s after, though, when it begins to rub her the wrong way. It’s when they’re in a bathroom with washed out walls and he offers her a hug that she feels a roiling in her stomach. It’s when they’re standing outside his little blue house and he puts a hand on her shoulder that she reels. Because before all that happened, he would’ve never thought to offer her any of this.

  


  


She knows she’s changed by this. She sees it in the faces of everyone in this town, wide eyes looking at her with suspicion. They’re all asking, how did she not know? And it reminds her, sharply, of Susan Wright. Of her own disbelief. Susan had told her she hadn’t known, she hadn’t seen the signs of the terrible things her husband was doing. Ellie hadn’t believed her. Because - in her own house? Her own husband, to her own daughters? No, Ellie had thought, a mother wouldn’t miss those signs. No, if that was going on under her roof, she would’ve noticed it.

  


But then it did, and she didn’t. It wasn’t the same, of course it wasn’t the same, but it was cut from the same cloth, men capable of killing who craved what they shouldn’t have had. So when Ellie notices the stares of people on the street, when she feels their judgement drilling a hole into her back, she can’t blame them, not really. She was there, once. And she can hardly believe it herself — still thinks there are signs she should’ve seen, still thinks there were clues she missed.

  


She knows the whole thing has changed her. She used to be quick to trust, and warm, and now those aspects of her feel so far removed. The case itself had hardened her, but that moment, that realization, has broken her in ways she can’t undo. She’s a walking car wreck now, strewn-about shards of her former self, and it takes all she’s got not to just fling herself off a cliff and be done with it all.

  


She knows she’s changed. Knows she’s a shell, a mess of fragments of her former self. But there’s something about Hardy reaching out that drives this point home, something about his hand on her shoulder that tells her she’s ruined. He never would’ve done this before, never would’ve offered up his arms and reached for her like that. It means that she’s been changed irretrievably, means that she’s been so wholly ruined that she’s suddenly something he feels the need to comfort, she’s so destroyed that he’s crossing all the lines he so harshly drew and he’s reaching out. It leaves nausea in her stomach, a bile in her throat, a gash in her still-beating heart.

  


  


Part of her would like nothing more than to relax under his touch, than to allow him to reach out and comfort her, but it’s so foreign, so unlike him, that it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. It’s clear to her that he’s only offering her this because of what she’s become, and she can’t accept these touches filled with pity, these outstretched arms that say in all caps letters YOU ARE BROKEN. She shies away, shrugs it off, tries to wash the funny taste from her mouth. But it haunts her, tugs at her, drags her down into the depths of her despair, leaves her awake at night, back stick-straight, hands clammy with sweat, heart beating in her throat.

  


  


She’s no longer who she was. She’s no longer the kind of person who comes back from vacation with huge smiles and gifts to give out with fun anecdotes. No, she’s no longer the person who does that, is no longer the sort of person who takes vacations, can’t sit still in the sun for more than a minute before she starts getting itchy and restless. 

  


She finds herself sitting in silence more often, finds that words seem to fail her now. But the silence can be suffocating, and the absence of words in her mouth means hundreds more swirl around her head, and sitting there by herself with only the glow of the moon to keep her company leaves her dizzy more often than not. 

  


She cries so often now that tears become more familiar to her than smiles, and it feels like there’s a great distance between her and anyone she talks to. It’s like she’s on some other plane, just a smidge out of reach, so that everyone’s words sound a little echoey and all the lights are a little too bright.

  


  


Part of her wants to go to him. Sitting in silence beside him is better than sitting alone, mostly. At least this way she can think about the case, can use that as a distraction, can use his presence as a grounding tool. But then he’ll reach out, he’ll care a little too much, he’ll check in a little too softly, and she’ll feel ruined all over again. 

  


She lies alone, and aches, feels more lonely than she’s ever felt, but every minute of human contact feels wrong, every distraction suddenly becomes its own dagger, and there’s no real escape from the swirl of darkness in her head or the heaviness of her heart. 

  


  


She sits and stares at the sea and tries to come to terms with a fact that’s becoming glaringly obvious now: she’s ruined beyond repair, she’s lost to no return, what she had and who she was no longer exist — they never did, really, it was all an illusion, a shimmer of light, an artificial glow that was never really hers. She’s here, now, shredded and torn, a dream ripped away, a ghost, a shadow. She stares out at the sea, waves crashing against the shore, harsh and dark. She feels so empty and alone yet so full of sorrow, untethered yet unable to move. There’s a wound that she can’t tend to. She’s ruined.


End file.
